Linda McQuaig

Linda McQuaig is a journalist and author. Her most recent book is The Trouble with Billionaires, (co-authored with Neil Brooks).
This column originally appeared in The Toronto Star.
eMail: linda@lindamcquaig.com

G20 effort was part of larger agenda that’s led to dramatic rise in inequality.

by Linda McQuaig

At the time, the transformation of the city’s downtown core into a pseudo war zone seemed like the worst aspect of the Harper government’s handling of the G20 summit in Toronto in June 2010. But perhaps just as insidious was Stephen Harper’s personal role at that summit in pushing the developed world to abandon stimulus spending and veer sharply towards austerity.

UN no longer able to move on climate change as it once did on ozone.

by Linda McQuaig

Perhaps the only thing more stunning than Alberta’s ruinous flooding has been the realization that not even a disaster of this magnitude, right in the heart of oil country, seems sufficient to break the torpor surrounding climate change. Indeed, federal and Alberta authorities seem undeterred in their dream of turning Canada into an energy superpower, even if it means immersing the country neck-deep in water.Continue reading »

'I keep forgetting to tell the PM about the cheque I wrote for Duffy…'

by Linda McQuaig

Tuesday March 12

Dear Diary:

A little down time today at the office. Gives me a chance to catch up on my diary writing. Not much going on in the PMO these days. A trade deal with the Europeans. La-di-da! Review of Chinese takeovers. Dullsville! Pipelines for that muck Alberta tries to pass off as oil. What a snore! Oh, wait. There’s a call coming in from Mike Duffy. Gotta run.

Thatcher-style attempt to crush unions would leave Canadian workers powerless.

by Linda McQuaig

The willingness of much of the Canadian media to go along with the Conservative narrative about Stephen Harper’s “moderation” has allowed the prime minister to wage a discreet class war against working people without attracting too much attention.

Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such a huge public outcry since the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was exposed as a mechanism by which the Harper government has flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign workers, thereby suppressing Canadian wages in the interests of helping corporations.

There is something almost quaint about the little ritual we go through every year at tax time.

Ordinary citizens diligently spend hours calculating their income and deductions and meticulously filling out forms, fearful of the probing eye and relentless reach of the tax man. At the same time, some of our richest citizens quietly park billions of dollars on faraway islands where the sun delightfully reaches but the tax man delightfully doesn’t.

Hugo Chavez portrayed as tyrant because he challenged Western oil domination.

by Linda McQuaig

Had Hugo Chavez followed the pattern of many Third World leaders and concentrated on siphoning off his nation’s wealth for personal gain, he would have attracted little attention or animosity in the West.

Instead, he did virtually the opposite — redirecting vast sums of national wealth to the swollen ranks of Venezuela’s poor, along with free health care and education. No wonder he alienated local elites, who are used to being first in line at the national trough.

Canadian gun control laws are much weaker than most of us want to believe.

by Linda McQuaig

Your shopping cart is currently empty.

This little notice popped onto my screen as I browsed the website of one of Canada’s biggest gun retailers, surveying the wide assortment of assault weapons it offers for sale online — including one virtually identical to the semi-automatic rifle used in last week’s horrific school slaughter in Connecticut.